Brides of Aberdar Read Online Free PDF

visiting them in their own quarters for a quiet word. ‘A kick from a horse. She thought it right to warn us in advance. Nothing so ugly, she says, as to upset the children, but a long scar down the side of her face.’ He had stood there, musing over it, the brave fore-warning of her disfigurement; brave and—pitiful. ‘So when she comes, we will all just try to ignore it, seem not particularly to notice it. I know you’ll all be kind.’)
    ‘Well, right enough it’s not horrible, just a bad scar. Spoils her looks, but doesn’t—well, alter her expression, like. A great gash it is, running down her cheek. A kick from a horse—yes, that could be it, right enough.’
    ‘And nice spoken?’
    ‘Well, quiet. Respectful like. Mind, anyone can play at being respectful; I do it myself, all the time.’
    ‘Not all the time, my boyo,’ said Menna in Welsh. Menna had been almost thirty years here, rising to be cook and, in the absence of any real mistress in the house, as general manageress. She, like Tomos, came from the sheep-farming mountains of the south. Here on the border, employment of the ‘real’ Welsh was naturally very common.
    ‘I do it when I must,’ said Tomos, shrugging. ‘Which is more often than I enjoy—not that I grudge it to the Squire. And the sparrow can chirp up a bit quick herself, I can tell you! Old Walloon was having a go, pecking at her. She wasn’t having none of that! “What you call my servitude,” she says. “I’m not ashamed of that.” ’
    The housemaid, meanwhile, was escorting the new arrival to her rooms, the house-boy having carried up her small trunk and travelling bag and deposited them beside the bed. ‘I’m to help you unpack, Miss, if you need it,’ said the maid, under instructions but heavy with resentment. She gave a deep, unlovely sniff.
    ‘No, thank you very much—I can manage for myself quite well.’
    ‘So I should hope,’ said the girl under her breath, departing. She turned back, however. ‘I was to show you the other rooms.’
    Of the two wings added on to the original house, all in a straight line, many years ago now, one was devoted to the nurseries, running the whole length of it along the first floor, over the fine ballroom, long unused. At present, besides her own, only one bedroom was used, shared by the two little girls; and there was a nursery—smallish, square rooms, panelled half way up the walls to protect the soft, easily damaged paint and plaster of the original Tudor. A third room, however, had now been re-furbished to be used once more as a schoolroom for the new generation—made larger and lighter than the rest by a projecting oriel window—that same window from which the children had watched the departure of their mother’s funeral cortege, and seen the beautiful lady and the frightened-looking gentleman.
    ‘They’re to take their lessons here. And their meals. You’ll take your meals with them,’ said the girl, grudgingly: more trays to carry and heavier, more things to lay on the table and clear away and carry downstairs again. The fact that the nursery-maid, Bethan, would perform all this as part of her normal duties, counted with her not at all; self-pity overwhelmed her. ‘I bin lying awake all night worrying about it,’ she said, her large slightly prominent eyes actually filling with tears. She gave another of her dreadful sniffs.
    ‘I’m so sorry. In what way does it trouble you?’
    ‘If you don’t see that for yourself, I shan’t point it out,’ said the girl and walked away. She said over her shoulder, ‘They can show you the rest of the arrangements.’
    ‘Don’t mind about Olwen, she’s always complaining,’ said Lyneth. ‘Come back to your room and let us unpack for you.’
    A blissful half-hour, lifting out the carefully folded things, selecting their places in closets and drawers—disposing of the few personal possessions, where each would look its best: the old-fashioned mahogany